Aural Sculptors - The Stranglers Live 1976 to the Present

Welcome to Aural Sculptors, a blog aimed at bringing the music of The Stranglers to as wide an audience as possible. Whilst all of the various members of the band that have passed through the ranks since 1974 are accomplished studio musicians, it is on stage where the band have for me had their biggest impact.

As a collector of their live recordings for many years I want to share some of the better quality material with other fans. By selecting the higher quality recordings I hope to present The Stranglers in the best possible light for the benefit of those less familiar with their material than the hardcore fan.

Needless to say, this site will steer well clear of any officially released material. As well as live gigs, I will post demos, radio interviews and anything else that I feel may be of interest.

In addition, occasionally I will post material by other bands, related or otherwise, that mean a lot to me.

Friday, 30 August 2013

Duffy's Minneapolis Minnesota 21st November 1980

Here is something special, presented here in the original lossless format and supplemented with some artwork. I will leave the description to Dom P who has remastered this gem from Dime, also are included the original downloader notes.

Dom P:
This fantastic bootleg just popped up on Dimeadozen, and it's a stonker...

I have mastered it to boost some of the higher frequencies, ensure bass welly, and to fill in a gap to make it one long continuous orgy of Stranglers heaven.

This is the best boot to emerge on that site since the Paris 1980, or the Bordeaux 79... this is brill.. Some of the original notes below from the Dime trader called Regtrademark, many thanks to him. I have preserved the loss-less format so I hope you all have fast broadband! ... enjoy.

"Minnesota Mike made audience recordings of shows in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area between 1978 to 1985. He used a stereo Sony TC-D5 cassette tape recorder and two Shure SM57 mics, top-of-the-line equipment in their day. He recorded shows just for himself and never made copies. I met him years later and he allowed me to trade copies his tapes. At first I traded cassettes and then when the technology became available, on CDR. So some of the copies that are out there are second generation or more, and some are digital copies of the master. I wasn't a very active trader and, in fact, some of Mike's tapes have never circulated. On the other hand, some of them have circulated widely and caused a sensation among collectors, such as U2: Uncle Sam's 4/9/81, and Husker Du: Longhorn 5/7/80. Mike's work is also the origin of some tapes uploaded by others here at Dime: "Iggy Pop - Minneapolis 20 Nov 79", "Richard Hell & the Voidoids - Longhorn Minneapolis - 31 July 1979". His tapes are often mistaken for Soundboard or FM sources -- but they are not, they are audience recordings."

1. Shah Shah A-Go-Go
2. Toiler On The Sea
3. Duchess
4. Hanging Around
5. Baroque Bordello
6. Down In The Sewer
7. Who Wants The World?
8. Threatened
9. Just Like Nothing On Earth
10. Bring On The Nubiles
11. Tank
12. Nuclear Device
13. Genetix
14. I Feel Like a Wog
15. The Raven

2 comments:

I attended the Roslyn NY show at My Fathers Place, mentioned this to you when we chatted in NYC, now I have an actual date! I think there were no more than 100 folks there but they rocked the joint. One of the band dared a few of us that were at the bar in the rear of the joint to come up front, of course had just arrived at the bar to refill my cup, wouldn't be anywhere BUT upfront. They were great, we retired back to my dorm room and I don't think any of the other "students" got any sleep that night as we played Stranglers records at full volume until dawn. I still remember my buddy sarcastically putting his head up to the woofer and screaming TURN IT UP I CANT HEAR IT at the top of his lungs. To all may neighbors that night I apologize belatedly. Not really. Sure I was at at least one of the NYC gigs on this tour as well. BRONX ED

Behold....

A Pithead Polar Bear

Running Cost Contributions

Hi there all!

Today, I have renewed the subscription for one of the two We Transfer accounts that support the Aural Sculptors site. In order to ensure that the links to the files that are posted on the site remain live and accessible it is necessary to maintain two We Transfer accounts, meaning that the total running costs of the Aural Sculptors blog totals £210 per year.

We Transfer is not the cheapest file sharing service available, nor does it offer the greatest storage capacity (hence the practical need for two accounts), but it is a reliable platform that does meet the needs of the site. Having been bitten hard on the arse before in years gone by with disastrous reliance on both megaupload and Rapidshare, I am reluctant to move away from the current arrangements to a cheaper option.

Since the site was launched (the catharsis of the birth perhaps) in July 2011, the site has featured 900+ posts (most with associated music files) of which over 450 have been directly associated with The Stranglers, in keeping with the whole rationale of the site.

Those of us of a certain vintage will recall the day when bootlegs recordings were difficult to come by and a tape with a poorly photocopied pastel paper cover would set you back a fiver (the equivalent of 6 or so pints in the mid 80’s!). Now however, it is a doddle for people to obtain a good quality recording of a gig, perhaps the first one that they saw by a given band, I dunno. The point is that it is free, shared in good faith by fans for fans.

Aural Sculptors, with its 800,000+ hits to date is not a massive site but it has a reasonable presence in the hierarchy of Stranglers related websites and that is enough for me to keep it going.

Therefore, I would kindly point out that it is possible to make a small contribution towards the running costs of the site. A donation button is located on the right hand panel of the site. In return I will continue in my efforts to keep the site relevant and interesting to likeminded people such as the regular visitors to the site. Additionally, I will do my best to continue to accommodate requests for specific recordings and/or updates of dead links (as best as I can in the time available to me).

It just remains for me to say, again, a big thank to you for your continued support, to those who have donated, commented or shared with me something that you think will be of interest to others.